Best Windows 11 optimizer: the gaming settings that are different on 11

Why Windows 11 needs its own answer

An optimizer, or a guide, built around Windows 10 can go wrong on Windows 11 in three ways. It can point at settings that have moved, since Windows 11 rebuilt the Settings app and redesigned the Graphics settings page. It can miss settings that did not exist on Windows 10 at all. And it can ignore a changed default: on clean installs of Windows 11 on compatible hardware, memory integrity is switched on, and Microsoft's own gaming guidance discusses it.

None of this means Windows 11 is a worse platform for games. It means the list of things worth checking is different, and a tool that claims to optimize Windows 11 should know which settings are new, which moved and which are unchanged.

Settings that are new, or matter differently, on Windows 11

Sources: Microsoft Support on optimizations for windowed games, Auto HDR and power settings; Microsoft Learn on memory integrity and Energy Saver.

Memory integrity: a trade-off Microsoft describes itself

Memory integrity, sometimes called HVCI, is part of Windows' virtualization-based security. It uses the Windows hypervisor to run the check that kernel code is signed and trustworthy inside an isolated environment, which makes it much harder for malware to tamper with the core of the operating system. On clean installs of Windows 11 on hardware that meets Microsoft's requirements, it is switched on.

Microsoft's own support article on optimizing Windows 11 for gaming says that in some scenarios and configurations there may be a performance impact with memory integrity and the Virtual Machine Platform turned on. It describes turning both off while gaming and back on afterwards, and it warns that doing so reduces the system's protection.

That warning is the part most optimizers leave out. This is a security feature, not clutter, so the responsible approach is to test whether it makes any measurable difference on your own machine first, and if you do switch it off, to treat that as a temporary change rather than a permanent tweak. The memory integrity reference page covers the registry values, how to check whether it is running, and how to recover if a driver conflict stops Windows starting.

Optimizations for windowed games

Games running in a window or borderless window have traditionally presented frames through an older path than full-screen games. Windows 11's optimizations for windowed games switch DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 games in those modes to the newer flip presentation model, which Microsoft says reduces frame latency and allows Auto HDR and variable refresh rate to work in windowed play.

It is off by default and applies only to DirectX 10 and 11 titles; games built on DirectX 12 or Vulkan already present frames their own way. You can switch it off for an individual game under custom options for apps if one misbehaves. Note one interaction: turning on Auto HDR also turns this on, and you have to turn Auto HDR off before you can turn it off.

The older, related settings for full-screen presentation and background recording are explained in Game DVR and fullscreen optimizations, and the variable refresh rate reference covers how it interacts with G-SYNC and FreeSync monitors.

Power mode and Energy Saver change old habits

On Windows 10, the standard gaming advice was to switch to the High Performance power plan. Windows 11 adds a Power mode setting under Settings, System, Power & battery, which Microsoft describes as a lightweight layer over the Balanced plan covering processor and throttling behaviour. It only appears while a Balanced-based plan is active, so choosing a classic plan hides it.

On some laptops that use Modern Standby, the classic High Performance plan is not offered at all, which leaves Power mode as the main control. Version 24H2 also replaced Battery Saver with Energy Saver, which can be set to run all the time, even when plugged in. While it is on, the power mode cannot be changed, so a gaming laptop that feels sluggish on mains power is worth checking for it.

The processor behaviour these settings control, including core parking and minimum performance state, is explained in core parking and processor states.

DirectStorage and loading on Windows 11

DirectStorage is a Windows programming interface that lets games load assets more efficiently, including decompressing them on the graphics card. Games that use it run on Windows 10 from version 1909, but Microsoft says Windows 11 was built with DirectStorage in mind and adds storage stack optimizations, including a faster file-reading path called BypassIO that reduces processor overhead. Microsoft is equally clear that an NVMe SSD is needed to see the significant benefit.

There is no switch for this. It depends on the game supporting DirectStorage, the drive being NVMe, and the operating system version. That makes it a useful test of an optimizer's honesty: a tool claiming to "enable DirectStorage" for every game is claiming a setting Windows does not have. If loading times matter to you, a fast NVMe drive with free space does more than any tweak.

Sources: Microsoft's DirectX blog on DirectStorage on PC and Microsoft Learn on BypassIO.

What works exactly as it did on Windows 10

Plenty of the settings in older guides carry over unchanged, and a Windows 11 optimizer should treat them the same way:

• Game Mode is still under Settings, Gaming, still on by default, and still mainly keeps updates and restart prompts out of the way during play.
• Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling dates from Windows 10 version 2004, is off by default and now sits under the redesigned Graphics page's advanced settings. See the GPU scheduling reference.
• The variable refresh rate toggle arrived in Windows 10 version 1903 for DirectX 11 full-screen games.
• Startup apps and background recording work the same way, though the Settings pages look different.

So a Windows 10 guide is not useless on Windows 11. It is incomplete, and occasionally it sends you to a menu that has moved.

How the common tools line up on Windows 11

All of the tools usually compared in this category run on Windows 11, but they approach it differently. Microsoft PC Manager supports Windows 10 from build 19042 and Windows 11, and as a Microsoft product it tracks the operating system closely, though it is a cleanup tool rather than a gaming one. Chris Titus Tech's WinUtil is developed with Windows 11 prominently in mind and is open source, so its Windows 11 tweaks can be read before use. Razer Cortex lists Windows 10 and 11 as supported. Winaero Tweaker supports every version from Windows 7 to 11. CCleaner is a maintenance tool whose job does not change much between versions.

When comparing any of them for Windows 11, the useful question is whether the tool knows about the settings in the table above, and whether it warns you before touching a security feature like memory integrity. The tweaking app comparison tests these tools on transparency, undo, price and restore points, and the free optimizer guide matches each free one to a job.

JINSHI Tweaks on Windows 11

JINSHI Tweaks is our product. It supports Windows 10 from version 20H2 and Windows 11, and its main app, PC Tweaks, publishes all 122 of its changes with their registry paths on the complete tweak list. Security-related changes are labelled High Risk inside the app, and six changes carry that label in total. It has no free tier, and PC Tweaks does not create a restore point for you, so make one before the first run. If you want to see what it covers, the JINSHI Tweaks homepage breaks down the four apps.

If stutter rather than configuration is the problem, fixing game stuttering on Windows 11 starts from the symptom, and which optimizer changes affect FPS explains what to test first. For a checklist that applies to any tool, see how to choose a PC optimizer for gaming.